International custody hearing ends

UPDATE: The hearing in which relatives of four missing sisters involved in an international custody dispute were questioned about the whereabouts of the children has ended.

The girls' father left the court struggling to hold back tears about 6.20pm.

A large contingent of state and federal police left the Family Law Court building soon after.

As the court remained closed for the duration of the hearings, the outcomes were not known.

EARLIER: The mother of four girls involved in an international custody dispute sacked her legal team ahead of the Family Court hearing in Brisbane this afternoon.

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Media had been excluded from the hearing regarding the girls - aged nine, 10, 13 and 14 - who went into hiding with a relative after they were ordered to return to Italy with their father to resolve the custody dispute.

Their location remains unknown, and their mother insists she does not know where they are.

The childrens' grandmother, great-grandmother and great-aunt were summonsed on Wednesday to testify under oath about the girls' whereabouts.

However, the great-grandmother has not shown.

The judge presiding over the case, who cannot be named for legal reasons, closed the hearing to the public this afternoon. He said he made the decision, despite his preference for "open justice", to ensure the witnesses were completely frank in their admissions.

He said the purpose of today's hearing "was not about providing food for a curious public", but locating four young girls.

“I have at the forefront of my mind … that the four children must remain the focus of this particular case, which is only one of thousands and thousands of cases between parents and families that come before this court on a daily basis, week in week out, month in month out,’’ he said.

The judge also noted that word of the childrens' whereabouts "would spread so quickly", because the Family Law Act does not prevent media from reporting evidence said in court.

Only the witnesses and their legal counsel, state and federal police, officers with the Department of Child Safety, the children's Italian father and his solicitor and interpreter have been allowed to remain in court.

Murray Green, SC, barrister for the Department of Child Safety, made the application to have the court closed, except to the families involved.

The girls' grandmother, based in rural Victoria, submitted a medical certificate to the court today in a bid to avoid testifying via video-link.

Her barrister Maurice Kriss, who addressed the court via phone, said his client was bedridden.

However, she may still be ordered to testify via phone, as her medical certificate does not state that she is incapable of doing so.

The New South Wales-based solicitors are also representing the childrens' grandmother.

The girls' mother, who according to court documents met her husband during a study tour in Italy at age 16 and married him at 17, moved out of the couple's family villa in 2007 after the death of the their third daughter.

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Under a “consensual separation agreement”, the pair shared custody of their remaining four children until the mother brought them to Australia, purportedly on holiday, in June 2010.

Their father has since invoked the Hague Convention, an international treaty against child abduction, in an effort to have them returned until custody issues could be settled under Italian law.